| Show REIGN OF KING COTTON why it bam B am supreme in the south immediately after the war tar promising as was the indu industrial industry alaa ad 1 Es or the p people eople were centered says the engineering magazine here was displayed an ener energy y as great as that which opened up to civilization the vast prairies of the west here was a well rounded growth which neither the south nor any other part of the country has been able to duplicate since the war cotton was indeed king kin but it was not such an absolute mona monarch relf as it has been since 1805 nor as grain has been in the west instead of bein being the south it was lar largely larely ely a main r a ain crop odthe of the s surplus crop the south did not then have its smokehouse and corn crib in the west this was basone one of the disasters disante of the war but it produced its own corn wheat and bacon the war changed these conditions it left universal poverty that men were compelled to grow cotton alone because the crop would be m mortgaged ort gafred be before foreit it was planted for enough at least to secure a bare living for the planter while he waited for it to mature on no other crop could advances be secured in this way when the crop had been gathered and turned over to tho merchant who had been carrying him and out of its proceeds the d debt abt for goods bought on credit including interest and commissions had been paid the farmer had nothing left As the next season came around r aund ho bo w was as again compelled to m mortgage orta his crop in advance to the man to whom hoaas ho was already alread yin in debt it was a condition and not a theory that confronted the farmers of the south and necessarily it has taken years for them to gradually work out ot of it moreover the negroes no groes intoxicated with freedom had many hard liard lessons to learn while they had nothing in the world on which to start they were financially about as well off as their late master for at least they had bad 11 no 0 debts debt to them for years to come cotton cott n was the easiest crop for them to cultivate and so they all began to grow cotton buying western corn and bacon on credit from the in merchant who had a mo mortgage on the cotton before the ground was plowed for its it s planting working on shares that ispay is paying inga a part of the crop for the rent of the land they cultivated cultivate dand and moving bout about frequently ly they had no inducement to try to improve the soil so while the aggregate acreage e annually increased the total production of the mouths crops fell far short of the yield per capita between 1650 and |
